


Monstrous Weapons

by nightspear



Category: Titans (TV 2018)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Aftermath of Violence, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Language, Post-Episode: s01e07 The Asylum, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-28 21:00:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16730535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightspear/pseuds/nightspear
Summary: Tag for 1x07: The Asylum. Gar's never even bitten anyone before.





	Monstrous Weapons

Gar's memories of the DRC were hazy with heat. They'd stayed near the Congo River, mostly, where it was humid all the time when it wasn't actively raining. He remembered short thunderstorms, torrential rainfall that lasted minutes and then disappeared, leaving the air damp around them. And then, there had been the accident.

 

He thought they'd had a burial of some sort for his parents, but he'd already contracted Sakutia by then, though he wouldn't realize it until later. The fever had taken his memories around that time and fractured them, so Gar wasn't even sure if he'd actually been to a funeral. He'd been too sick to stand by the time people in full-body PPE started bundling them into tents, and he'd been sixteen by then, old enough that matching him to a set of parents wasn't the highest priority for anyone under the circumstances.

 

All in all, he didn't remember as much about the place as he thought he should. They'd been in the Congo for months before the accident. Dr. Caulder said he was lucky to have his mind intact at all, after the Sakutia and the recovery from the serum afterward, so he tried not to complain about it.

 

The heat from the explosion was different.

 

It was a dry pressure that felt for a second like it was going to suffocate them before he realized what had happened, that the asylum was on fire and Kory was walking casually out of the flames. No question, then, about what had caused it.

 

Rachel's mom stayed hunched over even after Rachel turned and stood. Gar thought about checking on the woman, who had just seen Dick-- _not Robin, this time, but Dick_ \--break the faces of about a dozen men with nothing but a wrench. Then the firelight illuminated the red glinting wetly on Gar's skin, and he kept his bloody hands away from her white clothes.

 

"You okay?" he asked instead, glancing to the side, where Kory and Dick were...doing something. Cleaning up, covering up, flirting, whatever it was they did when they were out of earshot of him and Rachel.

 

Now, Rachel nodded. The fire didn't seem to faze her much--Gar wondered how many people they'd just killed, wondered if it was okay, if it was good--and she caught her mom in a half-hug. "You?"

 

Before Gar could answer, Kory was back, Dick's arm around her. Dick looked like shit. Kory was still shuddering a little when she took a deep breath, and it was hard to say which of them was holding the other up. For half a second, Gar wished Dr. Caulder were with them--he'd know what drugs Dick had been given, what horrors they'd done to Kory--and he shivered involuntarily.

 

Chief had strapped Rachel down, too, and Gar hadn't been able to stop it. Maybe there had been other patients he'd assisted with who had wanted to escape. Maybe some of them had been like Kory. Would he have known?

 

"Someone's gonna respond to the explosion," Dick said. No preamble, all business. "Let's get to the safe house."

 

"It's two hours away," Kory said, and Gar couldn't tell if she meant that they should go there or that they wouldn't make it. Gar wondered if Rachel's mom could drive.

 

"You have a safe house?" Rachel's mom--Angela--asked. She looked like she wasn't sure if she'd made the right decision, coming with them, and Gar wiped again at his mouth. Some of the blood had dried on his face, and he rubbed a little harder. Dick's eyes flicked over to him, and he stopped, backing up a step and looking away.

 

 _How many people have you eaten?_ Dick had asked.

 

"How safe _is_ it?" Angela said as Gar tried not to throw up.

 

"It's Batman's safe house, Mom," Rachel said, which, to be fair, was all the answer anyone should need.

 

Angela looked at Dick. "You're Batman?"  
  


The look on his face was almost enough to make Gar laugh. "We'll make it," Dick said instead of answering. Kory sighed and held her hand out for the keys. He hesitated for a second, gaze flicking down to where she'd been sliced open, and then, instead of reaching into his pocket, he reached under the car, pulled out the keys from some secret compartment, and tossed them to her.

 

There was probably some sort of biometric lock that kept people from stealing Robin's keys from under his car. Gar wondered if Batman carried the keys to the Batmobile in his utility belt. He wondered what Dick did for a utility belt when he wasn't dressed as Robin. He supposed keeping car keys in your pocket when you might be walking into a trap would be a little shortsighted.

 

It _had_ been a trap. Because of course it had. They'd said it would be, and he'd brought Rachel anyway. She was thirteen.

 

Kory ushered them into the minivan, and Dick stood outside the passenger seat, like he was going to singlehandedly take on cops and firefighters or psycho doctors, whoever it was that showed up when a decommissioned asylum got blown up. His posture made Gar wonder if he was still holding a weapon of some sort, and then the clotting blood on Gar's right hand squelched against the car door and he stopped wondering.

 

The drive was pretty short, probably. It was certainly quiet. Gar curled up in the back seat and closed his eyes, as much because he hurt all over as because he didn't want to look up and accidentally catch anyone's gaze in the rearview mirror.

 

XXXXX

 

A hand on his shoulder made him startle awake, and it took a few seconds of staring at Dick's wide eyes before he realized he was growling.

 

"Gar, it's just me," Dick said. His hands were open, up in the air, like he was surrendering. No--like he was trying to gentle a feral cat.

 

Gar flinched away from him and scrambled to the other end of the bench. The normal feeling of adrenaline was jolting through him, but this time, instead of feeling powerful, it felt like drowning. Like the suffocating heat of the Congo, like the hot spray of blood hitting the back of his mouth.

 

Dick put a foot up on the floor of the car, half in and half out. Hesitant. "C'mon, let's get inside, okay? We're here. We're okay. You're okay."

 

"I bit him," Gar heard himself say. There was a rumble in his voice, and he thought he could feel the tiger's canines sharp on his lip.

 

"Gar--" Dick started, and then his foot slipped and he landed hard on one knee. "Shit. I know, Gar, it's okay. We'll deal with it inside, all right? Just calm down, and come out. Please. I don't know if I can carry you right now. I need you to take a breath."

 

He still looked like shit. He definitely couldn't carry a tiger inside. Gar closed his eyes and took a breath, and then he took another one.

 

When he opened his eyes, he looked around. They were in the garage under Batman's safe house. The others were gone--already inside, probably--so Gar nodded once, and then nodded again. He put his hand up to his face--his wrist, where there was less blood--and didn't feel fangs. "Okay. I'm coming."

 

Dick backed out of the door but kept a hand on the car. Gar took his feet off the seat and climbed out. He wobbled a little when he hopped down, and Dick caught him under the arm. And then Dick's knees buckled, so Gar grabbed him back, and they leaned against the car together until they were both pretty sure they weren't about to fall over just yet.

 

"Fuck," Dick said.

 

"I know, right?" Gar agreed, and they made their way to the elevator.

 

XXXXX

 

Rachel met them at the elevator. Her hand was extended, like she'd been about to hit the button, her eyes scared and staring, and Dick straightened like he hadn't been pumped full of hallucinogens and beaten up a few hours ago. "I--hey," Rachel said. She looked over her shoulder at her mom, who was sitting at a table with Kory standing over her.

 

"See, Rach, they're fine," Kory said, but she was watching Dick as she said it. Dick nodded. Kory nodded back. She didn't quite smile, but her face relaxed a bit.

 

"There are like five bedrooms in this tower," Rachel said. They'd explored every inch of _Batman's safe house_ a couple of days ago while Dick had been on his road trip with the other Robin. She glanced at Gar, because they hadn't exactly claimed bedrooms then so much as fallen asleep while chatting in one of them.

 

The thought of waking up to Rachel's face and feeling her jugular in his teeth made him look away. Knowing that she could probably stop him--that the _thing_ inside her would probably stop him, even if he caught her by surprise--didn't help.

 

Dick bent a little to give Rachel a mini-hug, half a squeeze with his left arm that she leaned into for the two seconds it lasted. He kept his right hand on Gar's shoulder. "Kory, are you okay to help Rachel and Angela settle in for the night?"

 

They weren't subtle. Kory, who had killed dozens people in the short time he'd known her, looked harder at Gar, at the blood that he could still feel dried on his face and hands. Rachel looked at him, too, at Dick's hand on his shoulder. "Gar?" Rachel asked.

 

"Yeah, we should all get some sleep," Gar said. He made a face that was probably close to a smile, because she was thirteen, and he was good at saying what people wanted to hear. Her mother was sitting at the table. Her mother had seen him rip a man's throat out.

 

"Come on," Kory said. She pulled Rachel away by the arm and reached out a hand to Angela, who stared at it for long enough that the moment started to feel awkward. In another few seconds, it was going to be insulting.

 

But finally, Angela took Kory's hand. "Thank you," she said, and the three of them walked up the stairs to what Gar assumed was the bedroom where he and Rachel had hung out the day before.

 

The light hum of kitchen appliances sounded suddenly loud in their absence. Gar wondered if he'd failed to transform back entirely. Maybe he still had the tiger's hearing. Maybe he still had its appetite.

 

"How bad are you hurt?" Dick asked.

 

Gar shrugged a little. "I think I have a couple of burns," he said. "but no, like, permanent damage."

 

Dick pressed his lips together and sighed through his nose. "Yeah," he said quietly. "Okay. Let's get you cleaned up."

 

"I can--" he started, but Dick's hand was steering him toward a bathroom. Gar dragged his feet. "Wait, Dick, wait, maybe--not that one?"

 

As if he'd just realized that was the bathroom Dr. Adamson had been tied up in--the one whose tiles were probably still stained with his blood--Dick stopped, too, and sighed again. It was a tired sound, and Gar almost said that no, it was okay, he could use that shower, they could rinse all the blood away together. "You're right," Dick said before he could. "There's another one upstairs."

 

The trip upstairs felt a lot longer than it should have. Dick wasn't leaning on him, but Gar could feel occasional tremors through the older man's body. Adrenaline, hallucinogens, the crash from either one, who knew. "Are you gonna be okay?" Gar found himself asking.

 

Dick looked at him a beat too long, and then smiled a little. "Yeah, Gar. Don't worry about me."

 

When they stepped into a bathroom together, at the other end of the hall from where Rachel and the others had gone, he found himself asking again, "Are you sure? You were--when we found you, you weren't--Rachel's mom said sometimes they..."

 

"Hey." Dick's face was in his suddenly. The older man's skin was too pale, and his eyes still seemed a bit sunken, but both of his hands gripped Gar tight on the shoulders. "Gar, listen to me. I'm okay. All of us are okay. We're going to get you cleaned up, get some clean clothes, and go to sleep. Sound good?"

 

Gar nodded his head and let Dick push him to sit on the edge of the bathtub.

 

"You get a good look at the shock prods they were using?" Dick asked.

 

"Uh, no?" Gar said, because even if he'd gotten a good look at them, it wasn't like he'd be able to report make and model and electrical output. Probably that was the kind of thing Batman trained Robins to be able to recognize.

 

Dick frowned. "Right, okay. You feel anything weird afterward? I mean"--he added when Gar made a face at him--"any...trouble breathing? Did you black out at all?"

 

Gar shuddered. "No."

 

Dick looked him up and down a few times, then reached out to cup the back of Gar's head. He stayed there for a couple of seconds, like he was checking for a concussion or something, and then turned his back to fiddle with a first aid kit. He was stalling, since Robin probably never fiddled nervously with anything. Robin probably dug bullets out of himself and then sewed up the hole without flinching. But Dick still didn't really know how to act around Gar and Rachel sometimes. "You, uh, need help getting undressed? I want to check you over, make sure nothing gets infected."

 

It was silly, Gar guessed, to be self-conscious around Dick when the guy had seen his entire naked body, including his green wang, at least a couple of times by now, so he kicked off his shoes and unbuckled his jeans. He left his boxers on, though, because anything that needed treatment there he was sure as hell going to deal with himself. "No, I'm good."

 

Most of the burns were on his upper body. He didn't think they were bad, but they stung a lot, so getting those layers off was going to be a little harder. He pulled his arm out of his jacket sleeve first, and then froze at the sight of the blood that coated the sleeve from the inside.

 

"Tell me if you want me to leave while you rinse off," Dick was saying.

 

 _No, don't leave_ , Gar wanted to say, but there was a muffled rushing sound in his ears, and he couldn't make the words leave his throat.

 

Dick knelt on the floor in front of Gar. "Here," he said gruffly. He peeled the rest of Gar's favorite jacket away, and then his T-shirt. Gar didn't resist. He didn't move, either, when Dick reached past him to turn on the water and then held Gar's hands under the spray.

 

A few flecks dropped to the floor of the tub before the water ran fully red. There was so much of it. Dick scrubbed his arms, turned them this way and that, and scrubbed again until the skin looked normal again, just regular Asian-looking skin, not even a tinge of green anymore. Gar watched the water run pink and stayed pliant as Dick wetted a towel and started swiping gently at his face.

 

The towel was a dark color. Gar thought about Batman browsing Amazon for towels just the right color to look posh and also not get too badly stained with blood. Probably Batman had someone to do stuff like that for him, though.

 

"Do you ever wish he were here?" Gar said, picking a moment when he was muffled by the towel.

 

"Who?" Dick asked, only half-paying attention as he turned Gar's head to the side. Robin-- _as in, Batman and_ \--was washing behind Gar's ears, and he couldn't even bring himself to feel embarrassed about it.

 

"You know," Gar said. "Batman."

 

Finally, Dick looked at him. Batman was a touchy subject for some reason, and since Dick refused to talk about it, Gar had no idea why. Rachel seemed like she maybe had some idea, since she'd spent more time with the guy by now, but she let it slide. Kory had told them not to pester him about it. Gar was pretty sure Kory pestered him about it, anyway.

 

"I mean, he raised you, didn't he, sort of?" Gar continued, despite Dick's furrowed brow, because he'd eaten part of a guy's throat today, and nothing really felt like it was out of bounds in comparison. "We looked him up. Bruce Wayne. Paparazzi's got pictures of him with a protégé. It's definitely Jason. And you...obviously, you were, you know." He waved a hand instead of having to say, _you famously went to live with him after your parents were violently murdered._ "So Bruce Wayne's the Bat, right?"

 

Dick pressed his lips together, wiped a few more times at Gar's neck, and then turned off the water and dropped the towel into the bathtub. "Yeah, he is." He rummaged in the first aid kit and emerged with a tube of cream, package of gauze, and medical tape. "Turn around."

 

Gar turned around. "Do you miss him?" he asked when his back was turned and Dick was taping something in place on his skin.

 

"I--it's complicated," Dick said. His fingers didn't slow or stutter, but his voice was tense.

 

The part of Gar that didn't like people being mad at him almost apologized for asking. Instead, he said, "I miss Dr. Caulder sometimes."

 

That made Dick pause. "Yeah?"

 

"Chief's a great man," Gar said. "Always knows what to do. He's saved a lot of people."

 

"Including you," Dick said neutrally.

 

"He had a tranq gun," Gar heard himself say. "He had it, in the OR. He just shot me. Like he'd planned for the...the contingency. Like he knew he'd need to use it one day."

 

The more important part, he knew, was that Chief had nearly done something terrible, probably permanent, and definitely nonconsensual to Rachel. He wouldn't have managed it, of course, but he'd tried, and the image of Rachel, tiny and scared on the gurney, would stay with Gar for a long time. There was no forgiving that. There was no forgetting that Gar might have participated in that sort of thing before, too.

 

But what Gar couldn't stop thinking about was the moment of genuine confusion when the barrel of the gun had swung up to him. He couldn't stop thinking that he'd tried to stand up, for once, for something that was _right_ , and Chief hadn't even hesitated to put him down. Like an animal.

 

Something dry and fluffy draped itself over Gar's shoulders. Another towel, a new one, and he grasped at the edges of it, pulling it closed around himself as much as he could. Dick's hand tugged gently at his arm. "Look at me," Dick said. "Gar."

 

Reluctant now, Gar turned back around. He couldn't quite meet Dick's eyes. A hand brushed through his hair and stayed on his head. It reminded him of Rita, when she used to sit by his bed and smile and stroke his hair while he was still recovering from the Sakutia, when he'd first gone to live with Dr. Caulder and the others. The image of Dick Grayson as the beautiful, motherly Rita Farr was absurd enough to let Gar look up.

 

"Your...Chief," Dick said carefully. "He might have been a great doctor, but it doesn't mean he was a good man."

 

Almost on automatic, Gar shook his head. "No, that's not what I meant--"

 

"I've known great people, too," Dick pressed. "I was raised by one, remember? And he...he tried. He cared, I think. Maybe he still does. Maybe yours does, too. But caring isn't enough. Being a good commanding officer didn't make Bruce a good parent. And Dr. Caulder might have been a great man, but that doesn't mean he did right by you. Do you understand?"

 

Gar shrugged and looked away. "Yeah, I guess." It was easier to pick at Batman's probably-expensive towels than to meet Dick's earnest gaze. He'd had combat training as a kid, he'd said. And then it had turned out he was Robin, but it seemed a lot less cool now that Gar thought about what that actually meant. Robin had been around for a long time--thirteen, fourteen years, maybe. Longer than Rachel had been alive. Dick was older than Gar, but not enough for that math to check out in a way that seemed okay. Gar wondered if Batman had sat Dick down on a bathtub and washed his hands the first time he'd come home covered in blood. "Is that why you left Gotham? That's why you quit being Robin."

 

"I left because I thought all that was left of me was the weapon he'd made me into." Dick paused. Swallowed hard. "The weapon _I'd_ turned into. Every time I put on the mask, I...became a monster. I didn't want that for you and Rachel, Gar. I wanted to protect you both from it."

 

Gar laughed hollowly. "I turn into a carnivore. I...I killed someone today. Rachel sees demons in the mirrors. We're already monsters."

 

Dick sighed heavily. The hand in Gar's hair moved to cup the side of his face. "You're not a monster. Neither is Rachel. She said that you saved her life today, and her mother's. That man you attacked would have gotten you all killed. And then you got me out of the...that chair, and got to Kory in time to stop them from hurting her any more."

 

"You got us out of the tunnels," Gar said halfheartedly.

 

"Yeah," said Dick, "and what have you ever done that was as monstrous as that?"

 

Gar leaned forward and pressed his head against Dick's warm, solid chest. "I never wanted to kill anyone," he mumbled.

 

Arms caught him around his back, holding him there. "I know. You're a good kid."

 

 _You are an incredibly selfish boy_ , Dr. Caulder had said.

 

"I'm sorry I took Rachel to the asylum without you and Kory," Gar said. "I'm sorry you got hurt."

 

Dick huffed out a breath that could have almost been a laugh. "Jesus, Gar. We'll yell at you tomorrow."

 

A knock sounded. _"You two okay in there?"_ Kory called through the door.

 

Gar pulled away. Dick raised his eyebrows and waited for Gar to nod before calling back, "We're fine. Give us five."

 

Five minutes was enough time for Dick to find a set of clean sweats. They were a little big on Gar, but not big enough to be Dick's. Jason's, maybe.

 

Kory was waiting for them outside. She was in sweats, too, the first time Gar had seen her in something other than a flashy, brightly colored outfit. They were a bit small on her but looked like they were made for a woman, and Gar realized they were probably Batgirl's or something. How crazy was that?

 

"Okay?" she asked.

 

Dick put a hand on Gar's shoulder and left it there. "Okay."

 

"Gar?" she asked. Gar nodded. Kory walked toward him, still so glamorous and attractive enough to make him embarrassed to be this close to her. "You did good, kiddo," she said, and ruffled his hair, like Cliff did sometimes. "You need anything, you come to me. This asshole's useless."

 

"Hey," Dick said, but they were both smiling a bit, and Gar let himself lean into them, savoring the moment.

 

"Go say goodnight to Rachel," Kory said. "She's with her mom at the end of the hall. Then, bedtime. You want to stay with one of us tonight, or you want your own room?"

 

"Uh," Gar said. He sort of wanted to stay with Rachel, just curl up at the foot of the bed like he had the last time they'd been here, just to make sure she was okay after tonight, but her mom would probably be weirded out by it. The thought of an empty room, though, with no one but the tiger to keep him company... "Can I stay with..." He glanced up at Dick.

 

Dick's hand squeezed his shoulder and then let go. "Rooms here are big enough for two. I'll be in the room next to Rachel's."

 

"I'm on the other side," Kory added.

 

Gar padded down the hallway to Rachel's room and knocked on the open door. She and her mom were both sitting on the bed, but Rachel stood as soon as she saw him. "Hey, Rach," he said. And then, "M...Mrs....Azerath? I guess we didn't exactly--I'm Gar," he said. "...field. Garfield Logan. I go by Gar."

 

Rachel's mom still seemed a bit shocked by everything, but she quirked a tiny smile. "Hello, Gar. Call me Angela."

 

"Um, sure," Gar said, and then Rachel ran toward him and hugged him. A warmth he didn't quite understand spread through him, and he wondered, for the first time, if it was something Rachel was actually doing, even if not on purpose, if she was healing people all the time. "I'm glad you found her," he whispered into her hair.

 

Rachel nodded wordlessly. "You're going to be okay," she said, and, small as she was, Gar couldn't help believing her, just for the moment. If there was a monster inside Rachel, it was no match for her. So maybe there was hope for the rest of them, too.

 

"I just wanted to see you before going to bed," he said. "Dick and Kory are gonna be pissed at us in the morning. We did use Kory's Uber account to walk into a trap, so."

 

"I'll protect you," Rachel said.

 

 _Me, too_ , Gar thought, and said, "I know."

 

He closed the door behind him when he left. In the next room, Dick was laying blankets on a sofa, and Gar waited for him to grab a pillow before claiming the sofa, burrowing under the blankets.

 

"You take the bed," Dick said, holding the pillow in his hand.

 

"I got here first," Gar said. "I'm not moving."

 

Shaking his head, Dick dropped the pillow on Gar's face. "All right, kid, whatever. Wake me if you need anything."

 

Gar stuffed the pillow under his head and waited for Dick to turn out the lights and climb into the bed before closing his eyes. "Thanks," he whispered into the dark.

 

He wasn't sure he'd said it loudly enough to be heard, but just before he drifted off, Dick answered quietly, "Goodnight, Gar."

 

The tiger curled up in his chest and slept.


End file.
